The movies they release this time of year are so uninteresting that I decided to use this picture of a pro-Adam West demonstrator at the G20 instead of a picture of any of this week’s releases.  Seriously, Surrogates?  Who cares. Anyway, let’s get this mandatory post no one cares about out of the way, shall we? Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs landed on top again with a modest $24.6 million, while Surrogates and Fame kinda sorta bombed with $15 and $10 million.  And thank God Fame didn’t become a phenomenon, I can’t take it with the singing and dancing anymore.

Beyond that, The Informant! held well (-33% from week one), most analysts say because of the exclamation point, and Jennifer’s Body held better than most horror films (-49%), but didn’t magically become an un-bomb.  Plus it was competing against The Surrogates.  Pandorum, meanwhile, was a total bomb with $4.4 million in number six, but that’s what happens when you cast Cam Gigandet.  And because I’m sure you were all curious to know how the Tucker Max movie did, I’ll have to tell you about it because it didn’t make the top ten list below.  It was number 23 with $369,000 on 120 screens, for a per-screen average of $3,075, which actually isn’t horrible.  Reached for comment, a Tucker Max fan said, “Haha, 69!” and then date raped me. In his defense, I totally wanted it.

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(picture source = Durden)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs took number one at the box office this weekend with $30.1 million, which is slightly better than Bolt and slightly worse than G-Force, despite largely positive reviews.  The production budget is listed at $100 million, so it’s not what you’d call a huge hit.

The Informant! did okay business ($10.5 mil) in number two, Tyler Perry added to his bank roll, not that that was ever in question, and Love Happens and Jennifer’s Body pretty much tanked.  Love Happens‘ bomb is no surprise.  When it looks like penis kryptonite AND a sappy turd (as opposed to a lighthearted comedy, even a retarded one), you’re left with that core audience of Aniston die-hards and people whose showing of All About Steve was sold out, a small demographic indeed.  On the plus side, it managed a simultaneously lamer and less descriptive title than All About Steve, no small feat.  It’s looking like an early front runner for the Oscar in not giving a sh’t.

Jennifer’s Body barely made more than Sorority Row last weekend, and if I had to guess why, I’d say it probably wasn’t the best idea to play the commercials starring an already over-exposed Megan Fox over and over ad nauseum during football and UFC.  I felt like I’d already seen it 12 times by the time it came out.  You see, we men like variety, isn’t that right, hard drive full of exotic porn.  But then, what do I know, I’m not an analyst.  I’m just a guy who likes cats wearing costumes.  Uh, I mean pussy. Read the rest of this entry »

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a children’s book from the seventies about a town called Chewandswallow where it rained food, written by someone who was probably really high.  Sony made a movie out of it, and as you can see from the trailer below, they turned it into an origin story about how it came to be that this town rains meatballs.  Pixar seems to be the only animation studio that can do kids’ movies without babytalking, so to speak, and since I don’t have any kids that I know of, I have hard time giving a crap about a movie like this. I’ll let FirstShowing handle it:

In comparison to Planet 51 [I'll have that trailer up later today -ed.], I actually want to see this one just a bit more. Something about all that food and the comedy, it just gets me. Though I’m worried that like Sony Animation’s last movie, Surf’s Up, it won’t be as good as the trailers make it seem.

Yes, you see, the food and the comedy, it really gets him.  Fascinating, right?

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This trailer for Sony’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, based on the children’s book, was sent to me by FilmDrunkard Adam, who writes:

Thank you, Sony, for totally raping one of my favorite childhood story books. I don’t think they could have veered any FURTHER from the original story even if they added a racist, talking kangaroo who likes to punch down syndrome babies as the main character.  If you never read the original book as a kid, watch the trailer for Schindlers List, as that is a closer adaptation of this childrens book than this abortion of a movie.

As for me, I’ve never read the book. And since this isn’t a Pixar movie and the (3-D!!!) animation looks kind of crappy, I care about as much about this as I did about Delgo.  For more information, stay tuned to FilmDrunk, your source for news we can barely be bothered to report (we have two anchors, one to read the news and the other to make dismissive wank motions about it the whole time).
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